ilence the guns of the forts he would run past them with his
swift steam craft and take the chances of their batteries sending him to
the bottom.

Once past these forts and the city would be at his mercy.

He must first clear the river of the obstruction placed below the forts.
Farragut ordered two gunboats to steal through the darkness without
lights and clear this raft. The work was swiftly done. The task was
rendered unexpectedly easy by a break caused by a severe storm.

At three o'clock in the morning of the twenty-fourth, the lookout on the
ramparts of the forts saw the black hulls of the fleet, swiftly and
silently steaming up the river straight for the mouths of their guns.

The word was flashed to the little nondescript fleet of the Confederacy
lying in the smooth waters above and they moved instantly to the support
of the forts.

The night was one of calm and glorious beauty. The Southern skies
sparkled with jeweled stars. The waning moon threw its soft, mellow
light on the shining waters, revealing the dark hulls of the fleet with
striking clearness. The daring column was moving straight for Fort
Jackson. They must pass close under the noses of her guns.

They were in for it now.

The dim star-lit world with its fading moon suddenly burst into sheets
of blinding, roaring flame. The mortar batteries moored in range, opened
instantly in response--their eleven-inch shells, glowing with
phosphorescent halo, circled and screamed and fell.

The black hulls belched their broadsides of yellow flame now. From
battlement and casemate of forts rolled the thunder of their batteries,
sending their heavy shots smashing into the wooden hulls.

Through the flaming jaws of hell, the fleet, with lungs throbbing with
every pound of steam, dashed and passed the forts!

Farragut led in the _Hartford_. But his work had only begun. He had
scarcely reckoned on the little Confederate fleet. He found them a
serious proposition.

Suddenly above the flash and roar and the batteries of the forts and
over the broadsides of the ships leaped a wall of fire straight into the
sky.

Slowly but surely the flaming heavens moved down on the attacking fleet
lighting the yellow waters with unearthly glare.

The Confederates had loosed a fleet of fire ships loaded with pitch pine
cargoes. Farragut's lines wavered in the black confusion of rolling
clouds of impenetrable smoke, lighted by the glare of leaping flames.

The daring littl